Like this:

Religious conservatism and restrictive policies in the Phillipines that the Duterte administration has inherited are fueling a rising HIV epidemic in the Philippines, particularly among men who have sex with men, say Human Rights Watch.

Condoms are not currently generally available in the Phillipines.

The report said Philippines has outstripped its Asia Pacific neighbours in terms of HIV prevalence, with statistics showing a tenfold increase in cases recorded over the last five years. It said last year, the Philippine Health Department reported that at least 11 cities recorded high HIV prevalence rates of more than 5 percent among the MSM, with Cebu City – the country’s second-largest city – recording a staggering 15 percent prevalence rate.

The numbers were markedly higher than the overall prevalence rate for the Asia Pacific region, which was just 0.2 percent, as well as the rate in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the most serious HIV epidemic in the world but has a rate of 4.7 percent for those in that group.

Like this:

A gay man has failed in an attempt to have his legal challenge to the ban in Northern Ireland on homosexual blood donations examined by the UK’s most senior judges. NI’s lifetime ban on gay men donating blood was lifted in September.

The Supreme Court refused the case because the matter was now “academic” and the application did not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance worthy of further consideration.

It brings to an end the four-year legal battle over blood donations from gay men in Northern Ireland.

Like this:

There have been more hate crimes against gays in Germany than last year, according to the German Government.

Revealing that crimes against homosexuals had risen by a fifth from January to September, Ole Schröder, a Christian Democrat junior minister for the interior, told German MPs last week that a total of 205 incidents had been reported. Those figures compared to 171 reported crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in the same period last year. 99 suspects had been identified in 2016, slightly higher than the 86 people investigated last year.

It seems Germany does not have a country-wide system for identifying and reporting hate crimes against gay people.

The German daily “Süddeutsche Zeitung” said 113 homophobic crimes had been reported in the capital Berlin alone, in the first nine months of the year.
The cities of Hamburg and Cologne don’t collect figures for crimes against homosexuals, it added, despite having vibrant gay scenes.

Like this:

New Zealand MP Paul Foster-Bell, a member of the National Party, has announced he is gay, saying preacher Brian Tamaki’s claims about homosexuals causing earthquakes meant he had to speak up.

Foster-Bell, who has never previously spoken publicly about his sexuality, said he wanted to stand up for young, gay New Zealanders who could be questioning their self-worth as a result of Tamaki’s remarks.

Like this:

A U.S. appeals court will consider a closely watched gay rights case today in which Kimberly Hively, an Indiana college professor, who says she lost her job because she is a lesbian, is arguing that federal civil rights law should protect gay people from workplace discrimination.

The full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago will hear Ms Hively’s appeal of a July decision by three of its judges who threw out her discrimination case against Ivy Tech Community College in South Bend, Indiana.

In order to rule in Hively’s favour, the appeals court would have to buck decades of rulings that gay people are not protected by a milestone 1964 U.S. civil rights law.

Like this:

Uganda is one the most intolerant places in the world for homosexual people. Many have fled to neighbouring Kenya and are now refugees, waiting to be relocated to a country that will protect them, reports ABC.

Many of them now live in poverty.

The conditions are not much better than Uganda and it is a tough existence. Some turn to prostitution, others make handicrafts, but living and working in dense settlements means there are very few secrets. It is also dangerous.

Umar Walusimbi escaped from Uganda to Kenya.

“Now I’m also here in Kenya. Life is not OK.” Recently he was attacked while walking home. “They called me, “You gay — where you going? Give us money”. They slapped me, I fell down. They wanted even to burn me. They do everything to me.”

Like this:

So Fidel Castro, the Cuban ex-dictator, has died. He is remembered not only for the Cuban Missile Crisis which nearly destroyed the planet. Writing in The Daily Beast, James Kirchick notes:

It should never be forgotten that he was also an oppressor, torturer, and murderer of gay people.

“We would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider him a true revolutionary, a true communist militant,” Castro told an interviewer in 1965. “A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant communist should be.”

In the eyes of Castro and his revolutionary comrade Che Guevara—who frequently referred to gay men as maricones, “faggots”—homosexuality was inherently counterrevolutionary, a bourgeois decadence.

Within a very short time of taking office, Cuban police began rounding up gay men. In 1965, the regime established prison work camps known as Military Units to Aid Production which it filled with homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other “undesirable” elements.

Should Your Activist ever come face to face with Mr. Castro in Heaven, I already know how I will handle it.

Gay Activist

Welcome to Gay Activist. On line since 1998.

AFP/Getty

Hello! The Gay Activist website has been on the internet for sixteen years, provides background notes about key LGBTI campaigning issues, and helps readers become more effective by passing on tips and ideas.

The key campaigning issues for gay activists continue to be: equality in the workplace (including armed forces and other public services), in housing, family, health and age related care; fair treatment for refugees, assylum seekers and foreign partners; blackmail, homophobia and violence against gay men in particular; anti-gay vandalism and the destruction of gay owned property and businesses; religious bigotry, lies and hatred directed against gay people; challenging stereotypes and correcting lies about gay people; and the fight for gay people to access their human rights and in some countries the right to life.

Gay Activist accepts comments but we reject spam, promotional messages, messages with videos or other links, and hate messages. If you do not want your comment to be published please begin with the words "Not for publication". If you wish your comment to be published anonymously, please begin with the words "Anonymous please". Your wishes will be respected.

Gay Activist observes the European Data Protection Laws with regard to personal data.

Links are accurate at the time of posting but may no longer be there. All rights reserved, and no liabilities accepted.

This site has also been subjected to hacking attempts, which is why we have built in additional security measures.